


with and without you

by dragonflower



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 07:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22232404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonflower/pseuds/dragonflower
Summary: Ben is everywhere, within Rey's very soul, and it destroys her.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	with and without you

Rey sees Ben everywhere.

She sees him in her own eyes, fragments of his light shining through, kept within her when he gave his life for hers. Wherever she looks, he follows, his energy a constant pulse.

Rey feels him in her very bones, every ache she has a reminder that Ben is there, a part of her not to be forgotten. He moves with her when she walks, a shadow following each step. In a busy street, in a forgotten alley, he’s there, over her, watching her, the darkness always in the light.

The battle against the First Order is not truly over – it should have been Rey thinks, with all the lives that were lost – and when she sees TIE fighters fly above her, they’re a reminder of Ben even in the sky.

In battle, Rey feels Ben with her. With every thrust he moves with her, dancing like they had done before. She glides through battle, his footsteps fleet with hers. With every parry and riposte she feels his strength carrying her forward, her actions no longer wholly her own.

At night, on a new planet, having finished a new fight, Rey feels Ben all around her. She feels his hands in her hair, brushing against her lips; his fingers running down her chest and between her thighs. She feels his heat, a faint whisper of her name in her ears as she lets out a hollow cry.

Hugging her knees to her chest, spent and worn, she feels him in the string of tears that flow down her face; tastes his regret and pain on her lips as her tears fall. 

Ben is with her always and she misses him. Misses every touch that is now only in her head. Misses every kiss stolen from them both.

She kisses her mirror, her pillow, her hand, wishing it was him, praying to the Force to bring him back. Willing herself to be strong enough – for her love to be strong enough – for Ben to reappear. For her kiss to finally bring him back.

Rey aches with a loneliness that shouldn’t be as he is with her. Around her. Consuming her. They are one heartbeat, one life, yet she still feels torn and anguished, broken and fragmented, constantly wanting her other half. She needs to see Ben’s smile, hear his laugh, taste his kiss, know the feeling of him moving inside her, and it can never be.

Rey withdraws slowly from her friends. Then slowly from the Resistance she fought so hard for. She will always come to the fight, to ensure the safety of the galaxy (for Ben’s death not to have been in vain), but it’s too hard to keep up pleasantries and platitudes, to keep a smile and hope in her eyes.

She locks herself away again, all the while begging to held, begging for the slightest touch, begging to belong. She’s hewn in half, as Ben is the one who had started to give her all of her dreams. All of her selfish wants. He had begun to fill the vacant hole inside of her – inside them both – before it had all been taken away. She had been a fool who had started to feel loved.

The love she has for Ben cleaves at her soul, the love he had – has – for her a wound now instead of a balm as it can never grow. It can never morph from what it is and be tangible in another’s touch. She will never see this love in his eyes, or taste it on her lips, or see it in a smile as he passes by. His love is always with her and she bleeds with a need for more of it.

She mourns for Ben – for herself – for the shared dreams they had kept deep inside themselves that will never be fulfilled; she sees his wants and desires when she sleeps, the whispers of Ben’s past haunting her dreams. She sees the tale of a young boy taken from his parents too soon; the corruption of a boy with too many voices in his head telling him what to do; and the broken soul of a young man who wished to be loved.

Rey feels his loneliness in every dream; the loneliness he carried as she carries her own.

Rey wonders if the Force has given her Ben’s dreams as misguided gift for all her work. To comfort her in times of pain; a way for her not too feel so alone. But to her, his dreams feel like a punishment as she can never change them. Never give Ben the ending that he desperately craved. Never give him the family they both deserve.

Ben’s dreams, his wishes, his past, should have been a bridge for them both going forward, but now they’re echoes of a ghost Rey can never shake; with him always, she is never able to grieve him. She is never able to move on.

Rey is caught between the living and the dead, kept warm at night in a cold embrace.


End file.
